Photo collection documents history of area

Written by: Dan Dundon
Photos by: Mario Peralta

When future generations of researchers want to see what
Jacksonville looked like in the early ‘70s, they may get the best picture by
browsing through the more than 50,000 images by award-winning photographer
Lawrence V. Smith recently donated to UNF’s Thomas G. Carpenter Library.

The collection includes everything from the gritty to the
glamorous. Container ships at JaxPort share space in the collection iwith
dramatic sunrises over the downtown skyline.

The library collection is a small part of the more than
500,000 images collected by Smith during his wide-ranging career. Smith died in
Jacksonville in August of congestive heart failure after a long illness. He was
78.

Playing a key role in going through the collection was
his wife, Linda Smith, a librarian and charter UNF faculty member who recently
retired. “Larry and I discussed this donation for a long time and he was very
enthusiastic about the gift. Fortunately, he was still at home when I
sorted through the images and that made the job a lot easier," she said.
"Larry helped me focus on those images most reflective of his work in
Jacksonville."

Smith’s incredibly varied career took him from the
steaming jungles of Vietnam to the numbing cold of the Arctic. Over nearly a
half-century, he amassed numerous awards, including four Emmy Awards. The
photos and films he created tell the story of some of the era’s most turbulent
events, including revolutions and wars. He documented Fidel Castro as he overthrew the Batista
regime in 1959 and served as a camera correspondent for ABC-TV during the early
stages of the Vietnam War in 1965.
As the director of photography for “Wild Kingdom,” Smith traveled from
the Arctic Circle to South America to film animals in their native habitats.
The “Wild Kingdom” efforts won him two Emmy Awards to add to two earlier awards
for his Cuban revolution coverage and Vietnam work.

Eileen Brady, head of the Carpenter Library’s Special
Collections and University Archives, said Smith’s photo collection will be
available to researchers as soon as all pieces are fully cataloged.